It’s a wonderful thing to wake up and drive to a national park. Joshua Tree is just over 2 hours from our SoCal home base in Riverside, aka my parents’ house. We got some coffee before heading into the park and definitely asked the caffeine to help us wake up as the sun continued to wake.

I’m pretty sure Chris didn’t talk the first hour we were in the park. Ha. But after we all climbed on some of the big rocks I think playing on nature’s playground helped us come alive.

Since we were in the park after sunrise we got to use some of the best of direct sunlight — shadows, the colors illuminating between jumbo rock crevices, and of course the vibrancy of the desert.

As the desert brightened up it was so sweet to see Chris + Christiana’s goofy side illuminate too. YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT THE HITCH HIKING PHOTOS. (A car actually stopped. Whoops.)

Anywho, please enjoy these best friends and their ventures around Joshua Tree on an early Sunday morning.

Love you guys!